Bardoli sugar co-op plans power plant

Ethanol distillery to come up by the end of the next year

Shree Khedut Sahakari Khand Udyog Mandali Ltd, a 50-year-old sugar co-operative, plans to set up a 100 MW power plant and an ethanol distillery at Bardoli, about 30 kms from Surat.

"The proposed ethanol distillery will have a daily production capacity of 90 kilolitres. We have sought environmental clearance from the government and expect to get it in the next four to five months. As soon as we get the clearance, we will start the procedure to acquire machinery. We are confident that the distillery would become operational by the end of the next year. We also plan to set up a 100 MW power generation plant in this area," N B Gohil, the mandali's managing director, said.

Gohil said, "The mandali offers the best prices for sugarcane to farmers. Farmers here are better-off than those in most other parts of the country. The money generated by the mandali is used for development at the local level. It is used to build goods roads and provide aid to educational institutions and hospitals".

The sugar factory, which has an annual turnover of Rs 350 crore, has played an important role in the development of Bardoli, the co-operative said. Bardoli is famous for its used-car mela, where thousands of cars are bought and sold every month.

Gohil said, "We have over 2,000 employees and 5,500 member-farmers. Around 30,000 harvest workers and labourers work in sugarcane fields in the region. In addition, hundreds of transporters are also directly dependent on the Mandali."

The mandali contributes around 10 per cent to the country's total sugar production.

"The annual national production of sugar in the last three years has been about 200 lakh quintals. With an annual production of 19 to 20 lakh quintals of sugar in these years, we have been a major contributor to the overall national production," Gohil said.

"We have achieved production higher than our installed capacity. Higher production led to shortage of storage space and we had to store sugar stocks in the godowns of other factories in the region," Gohil said.

"We exported 5.62 lakh quintal of sugar in 2001-02, which was 50 per cent of the total sugar exported from the country in that year. In 2002-03, we exported about 3.74 lakh quintal, which was around 30 per cent of the total sugar exports," Gohil said.

The mandali will not be able to export any sugar this year. Rainfall so far has been deficient and there is a distinct possibility of a drought in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Because of this, the national production of sugar will come down by around 30 per cent, or around of 60 lakh tonne. Under these circumstances, the government will have to import sugar to meet domestic demand," Gohil said.